Chapel — Canvas

A small whitewashed chapel rises against a sky of shifting grey and blue, its bell tower catching the last cold light of day. Ivan Grohar paints it the way Slovenian eyes know it, plain and steadfast, a landmark on a hillside rather than a monument. Around the building the landscape does its quiet work. Bare trees cross the foreground in dark, wiry strokes, and the ground is laid in broad slabs of umber, moss green and pale ochre. Grohar builds the chapel walls with thick impasto, loaded brushwork that leaves the plaster surface almost physical. The tower, the pitched roof and the small cross are reduced to a few decisive shapes, while the sky above churns in loose sweeps of lead white, slate and storm blue, impressionist in touch but sombre in mood. A study wall or a quiet hallway suits this chapel scene well, somewhere the muted light and rural silence can be read slowly.